Do you remember the time my dear? To the love of my life on the occasion of Valentine’s Day.

He Says

I hear her typing.
I know she’s home
and all is well.
My heart sings in harmony with hers.
She is doing what she loves.
I feel her freeing
as she reaches for herself.
In her reaching she stretches me.
I descend the stairs
to the immediacy of her smile.
The adoration I see in her eyes
makes my manhood soar.
The self, reflected back to me in her eyes,
is a genius, a partner and friend.
It’s a commitment to the end.
For in her eyes I’m a man of stature;
Atlas in psychological musculature.

My evolving mission’s the emancipation,
after the detonation and the blast,
twinned to the life that was past.
Composite integrity blending,
we’re making each other whole.
Luxuriating in dreaming,
in forgiving,
And like art
forever enduring.
I hear her typing.
I know we’re home
and all is well.

The truth is I would be fine
if you would allow me a slot
to define my own space in my own time,
to walk leisurely with the grace
to change my mind.

I need the privilege,
the easing out of tight ridges,
of ideas unprepared
and not quite decided.

I have the need to clear my desk,
without the burden of redress.
Get rid of the clutter,
and with each new dawn,
craft the path of the reborn,
with dreams unplagiarized,
not borrowed, boxed, or generic,
and courage to revel
or put the gears in reverse.
I’ve lived your dreams,
And, oh, how I want to live mine.

I use the words of the famous poet William Blake to inspire hope in all such victims: “Little Lamb God bless thee”

She became pregnant in adolescence, a victim of a trusted adult. Like Persephone another maiden was snatched from innocence by a death inflicting figure. Was she another victim doomed to become a prisoner of the underworld of life? Research shows that victims of childhood sexual abuse are set up to be long term victims. Some even become prone to sexual re-victimization (Fergusson, Howard and Lynky, 1997). High rates of depression thoughts of suicide, and dependence on drugs or alcohol become some of the scars of their world. It is my prayer that the gates that imprison of this little lamb are broken.

Generally, there seems to be no one to bless Blake’s “Little Lambs” for Justice seems to have abdicated this duty for which it was enthroned. Justice has abdicated even from the highest courts of our land when our teenage victims are not believed, and their tale deemed less credible than those of Hades even when “Hecate” and “Helios” support Persephone/ the victim’s tale. Consistently, the report of the death inflicting figure is believed thus positioning the darker side of our society as inviolable. To maintain a facade that all is well society makes the choice to ignore its underbelly of rottenness. Humanity must save face and so it chooses to err on the side of the loudest speaker and those with political influence.

The issue of child abuse is remote phenomena until it comes home to roost . When it happened to a childhood friend’s daughter the remoteness of the phenomena evaporated, and it hurt like crazy. My pain gave birth to the poem, “I Did not Know” .

“I Did not Know” and similar poems can be found in my book Splendor from Ashes

The issue of child abuse is a remote phenomena until it comes home to roost . When it happened to a childhood friend’s daughter the remoteness of the phenomena evaporated, and it hurt like crazy. My pain gave birth to this poem, “I Did not Know”.

I Did Not Know (2013)

I confess I did not know

of the breach of long ago,

and when I heard, it pained me so

that tears refused to flow.

Stillborn tears are worst, you know.

They wrack your being in vain.

You cannot sleep, you cannot rest,

for deeds you can’t redress.

Nightmarish thoughts overrun my breast,

conjuring, tormenting, protocol despising,

adjudicating for logic, sense, and meaning,

with the philosophies of the best.

Hades’s life entombed and threatening

in a young girl’s womb.

Breach, interruption, society’s decimation,

deflowered Persephone in need of a redefinition.

I can’t turn back the clock, my dear,

or murder the inspirer of fear,

but I relentlessly mourn all Persephones,

as though they were my own.

“I Did not Know” and similar poems can be found in my book Splendor from Ashes

As obtained under the system of colonialism, an abuser aims to violently take control of another person. Both systems act to break and exploit a person in order to bolster some distorted sense of glory. An abuser, whether in full awareness or not, operates a system that is aimed at destroying another’s courage to hope, as well as to foster deficiencies in one’s pride and self-esteem. Like colonialism, systematic abuse places a stronghold on the person subjected to its ministrations whether or not the perpetrator intends to do so.

Often – times the abuser justifies the status quo treatment of the subject. An apathetic society then becomes complicit in this justification of such subjugation by being mum on the subject or by not openly addressing it. The persistence of such a system tells of certain structures deeply embedded in our socialization system that allows for the perpetuation of this evil generation after generation. We need to identify and annihilate those pertinatious structures from among us.

As alluded to the poem “I don’t Break, I Bend a postcolonial renaming is called for as identity rediscovery and reclamation must be realized for recovery and transcendence. To allow for this, colonialist implants of the abuser in the psyche that reconditions a person into thinking he/she is not enough, must be rejected. Simultaneously there must also be a rejection of the attendant subjugation that overtime causes the subject person to become settled into the unacceptable positions. To escape the stranglehold- the accustomed prison- and neuter the impact of the abuser, the wounded must rename herself. In the process with God’s help that person would achieve ascendance to transform her/his point of breaking into her/his point of making

The Returning Soldier

Many a time we face the battle of life like untried soldiers. And, like untried soldiers we are never fully prepared for the sometimes-dramatic consequences of warfare. Then when we confront life’s amoral demands for conformism we become stunned like deer caught in the headlights.

But having taken institutional vows we feel we are under moral obligation to act the part to keep up appearances. Oftentimes this may come at a cost. It may come at the cost of a slow and painful death of core values, of dreams and of self.

Yes, we kill off our dreams and other aspects of self for appearances because we are mindful of the oath taken.

At times as returning and rebounding soldiers we are so broken that it is quite challenging – near impossible to make the psychosocial adjustments required. Yet we soldiers return to wherever home is, to face ridicule after having sacrificed a part of ourselves for that which was judged as valuable, or for some other – perceived greater good. So, did I.

This short exposition is hopefully a guide to the understanding of the poem “The Returning Soldier” which follows: